President Trump said Sunday that Bombardier, the Montreal-based aerospace manufacturer, will lose access to the American market unless it starts building its aircraft inside the United States, escalating a trade dispute with Canada just as a new round of retaliatory tariffs is set to take effect.
“NO MORE SELLING BOMBARDIER IN THE UNITED STATES! Their products aren’t good enough!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. He added that “over 50% of their revenue comes from the United States” and that Bombardier has “lived off American Buyers, American Companies, American Airports, and American Service” while Canada blocks American competitors from doing the same.
“That Era is OVER!” Trump wrote. “If they want our Market, they must build here, and stop treating America like a ‘piggybank.'”
A trade fight that keeps widening
The post landed a day before roughly $20 billion in Canadian counter-tariffs on U.S. goods are due to take effect, part of a tit-for-tat exchange that began earlier this year and has since pulled in autos, steel, lumber and now business aviation. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has said his government would match American tariffs “dollar for dollar, rate for rate,” and Ottawa has shown little sign of backing off ahead of the deadline.
Trump has taken aim at Bombardier before. Earlier this year he threatened 50% tariffs on Canadian-built aircraft and floated decertifying the company’s Global Express business jets unless Canada approved several U.S.-made Gulfstream models for use there. Canada eventually certified the Gulfstream jets, but the underlying friction over market access never fully resolved, and Sunday’s post suggests Trump considers the issue unfinished business.
What it would mean for Bombardier
Bombardier builds its Global and Challenger business jets primarily at plants in Montreal and Toronto, along with a completion center in Wichita, Kansas, where cabins are finished and outfitted. The company does not currently manufacture complete aircraft on U.S. soil, and shifting final assembly across the border would require years of planning, new tooling and a workforce buildup that isn’t easily improvised in response to a social media post.
The United States is Bombardier’s single largest market. The company has previously disclosed that U.S. customers, from corporate flight departments to charter operators, account for more than half of its aircraft deliveries and aftermarket service revenue, which lines up with the figure Trump cited. A sustained U.S. sales freeze, or even the threat of one hanging over buyers deciding whether to place new orders, would strike directly at the company’s core business.
No response yet
Bombardier had not issued a public response as of Sunday, and Prime Minister Carney’s office did not immediately comment either. It remains unclear how the administration would attempt to enforce a sales restriction on a foreign manufacturer’s aircraft, whether through tariffs, import restrictions, procurement rules, or another mechanism, and the White House did not detail next steps in the post or afterward.
Business jet buyers, meanwhile, are left to weigh the uncertainty. Aircraft orders of this size are typically placed years in advance, and a standoff between Washington and Ottawa over where the planes get built could complicate deliveries already on the books even before any formal policy is announced.
Sources: CNBC · Fox Business · Washington Examiner
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